June 2013

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. . . You lay out the rafters of Your home in the rain clouds. You make the clouds Your chariot; You ride upon the wings of the wind.
Psalm 104: 3 NLT


Show and Tell

             That wind yesterday evening!  My husband and I stood at the south-facing dining room window watching it push the rain before it the way a snow plow blade pushes a wall of snow.  It was exhilarating to watch that weather charge across the field toward us!  When it reached us it was a torrent, blast after blast of swirling wind and water that made me think "tornado!"  I rushed to a west window to check for funnel clouds heading our way, and got there just in time to see several large limbs twisted from the silver maple and thrown across the yard like pick-up-sticks.  That was some serious wind!  I thought of Jesus' words to Nicodemus, The wind blows wherever it wants (John 3:8a NLT).  Well, yes it does! 

             You must be born again, Jesus had said to Nicodemus, but how to answer Nicodemus' question about how an old man could go back into his mother's womb and be born again?  That was another matter.  Some things can be spoken, but can't be explained.  Jesus told Nicodemus,  Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit (vs. 3:8b).

            When sharing my faith I've often felt like I've failed because I haven't, to my own satisfaction, been able to explain the mystery, the wonder of it all.  If I could just explain it better, I've often thought, my hearers couldn't help but want in!  But if Jesus himself couldn't explain how people are born of the Spirit, what makes me think I can?  Or should?  Or am expected to?  The Great Commission, as it's often called, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel, isn't a command to explain, it's a command to tell.  

            In poetry, there is this cardinal rule:  Show, don't tell.  While the Good News of Christ's sacrifice for the sin of mankind is meant to be told, some things, like the face of the Father, or the moving of the Holy Spirit are like the images and ideas in poetry; they are meant to be shown.  Just as last night's swirling rain and twisting tree limbs showed us what the wind was doing, so the actions of believers in Christ show the world what the Spirit is doing.  At least they're supposed to.

            Because our actions--the ones we hoped people were watching, and the ones we hoped they weren't--represent what we truly believe, we have to ask ourselves this question:  Do my actions accurately represent God and the moving of the Spirit?  If not, why not? When our actions have been an inaccurate representation of holiness, has this been because we stumbled momentarily, or because this is our normal way of life?  (I'm speaking of heart-intent and the majority of the time.  No one but Jesus walked this Earth without sinning, that's understood.)  So, the majority of the time, does our 'showing' support our 'telling'?  It's not tell or show, it's tell and show.  The two go together like wind and rain in a Midwestern thunderstorm.

 

 Daye Phillippo

June 2013